21. The River &...

Lyrics

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride


When I wrote about U2 I mentioned that Bono is the biggest modern rock icon. In writing that I forgot about Bruce Springsteen, who at 62 is still making new albums that are both critically and commercially successful. And as he always did he still tries to insert political and social messages in his songs. He is especially concerned with poverty in small-town America, and in many of his songs he manages to really evoke a poverty-stricken desperate place. This song is a good example of that. I am a fan of him, though his music can sometimes be a bit too folksy, like the beginning of this song, when he plays the harmonica. The movie I chose is about a poverty stricken family living in a farm in small-town America. They are having quite some problems, because they live next to a river that has tends to overflow and ruin their crop. I didn't know anything else about this movie, but after watching it I don't think I could have chosen a better link to this song.

The Movie: The River (Mark Rydell, 1984)

Joe Wade (Scott Glenn) is a business man who wants to flood a valley and build a dam, in order to create jobs, houses and better living conditions in general for a great many people. This is necessary in a region where there is huge unemployment, where people live in tents and where even those that have a job and a home struggle for survival. Obviously there are people living in the valley, but Wade will make sure that they will get a new house and they will receive a substantial financial compensation for their troubles. Besides life for the people in the valley is hard. They live next to a river, which overflows when there is too much rain. And when there is too little rain their crops will fail. They too have too struggle to live a normal life. Somehow Joe Wade is the villain in this picture. The hero is Tom Garvey (Mel Gibson) who doesn't want to move with his family, because his ancestors are buried in the valley. This despite the fact that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong for the Garveys. The movie takes place over about two months at most. And during this time the river overflows twice and the Garveys can't sell anything for a reasonable price. Furthermore Tom has to leave the farm and his family to get a job working construction. He can't go back during this time, so his wife Mae (Sissy Spacek) has to do all the work on the farm and breaks her arm. The only reason he can get the job is because there is a strike in the factory and when the strike is over he has to leave the job. He can't get another one (on account of the economy!) so life on the farm only gets harder. These are only the major things that go wrong for the Garveys. I didn't mention things like dying cows, because they can't pay the vet. Considering all this you' d say they would love Joe's plans, but no.

This is all bad enough, but Joe Wade is a pretty annoyingly written villain. There are scenes that come completely out of the blue and only mean to show that Wade is really a bad guy. In the middle of the movie, when Tom is gone, Joe suddenly starts hitting on Mae and promises to leave his wife if she would leave Tom. And in the final scene near the end the river overflows and Tom and his fellow farmers try to stop the river by building a small dam with mud, sand and huge bags. They succeed and Joe pays a bunch of unemployed people to ruin this dam. While that is a villainous act that it is completely out of character I could by that he would do this. What I didn't buy is that he would make sure that the farmers know that he did this. That is simply stupid. If the farmers know that he ordered to ruin their work, they would oppose his dam even more.

Despite all this I actually liked the movie for the most part. The first 15 minutes are even quite great. Without any dialogue the movie shows us the power and the danger of the river. It starts with an idyllic shot of the Garvey's son fishing in the river, while the sun shines on him. Rain seems far away, but in a few seconds the clouds darken and it starts raining like hell. The river overflows ruining everything in it's path and we see the farmers working hard trying to stop it, but being unable to do much about it, even with serious machines. The movie also manages to evoke incredibly well how it is to be in nature just after an enormous storm in summer. The sun is shining a bit, you want to go outside, but it's all wet and muddy and your shoes get dirty. It's neither hot and cold and there is this unusual smell we can only smell after a storm. Lastly the portrait of the Garveys is a really realistic and beautiful portrait of an ordinary family. We really care for them and we really hope they will have a good life. Which makes their stubbornness so unfortunate and idiotic.